Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Event/Special
Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R-GA) Discusses Senate Runoff, Trump Call with Raffensperger; 13 Republicans in Senate, 140 in House Plan to Challenge Electoral College Votes; Trump & Pence Having Lunch Right Now as Trump Intensifies Pressure on V.P. to Challenge Congressional Vote Count; Alan Frumin, Former U.S. Senate Parliamentarian, Discusses Trump Pressuring Pence to Challenge Congressional Vote; Coronavirus "Human Disaster" in California, Person Dies of Virus Every 15 Minutes in Los Angeles; FDA Warning Against Splitting Doses of Coronavirus Vaccines. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired January 05, 2021 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: And along with that, he made untrue claims which, again, you, Gabe Sterling, Secretary of State Raffensperger have gone to great pains to say that's not true. That these 5,000 dead people voted. There were two dead people. The shredding of ballots didn't happen.
You made it clear you would never make a call like that, inappropriate, you were disappointed by it.
Do you believe, given the facts out there, given how clear you all have been about them, that the president of the United States actually believes all of the stuff he was saying on the call?
LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R-GA): Well, I tried to find the nicest, most direct word to use and it's disappointed in the call. I said there was no reason for the call.
I can't imagine anybody on his staff thought it was a good idea before, during, or after.
But, look, I don't know if the president believes it or not. I hope he doesn't. I guess part of me wants him to be embracing reality in facts and figures.
But neither here nor there. That doesn't help us get Kelly or David across the finish line tonight. It doesn't help us long term to build the Republican Party, to fan the flames of misinformation.
It has been concerning to me, to my wife, to our family to watch folks that are close to us, that we know, that we live life around, that have been willing to believe just the most crazy, outlandish fictitious scenarios put on a Facebook page, what not, that are debunked in five seconds or less. It has been concerning. But, look, I am ready to move on. I'm ready to
get Kelly and David across the finish line.
I'm ready on January 20th for President-Elect Biden to be sworn in. And for us to move on as Republicans and try to win the White House back in four years.
BURNETT: Our reporter in Georgia, Donie O'Sullivan, he has done some amazing reporting. He has gone to these rallies, the president's rally in Dalton, these rallies the president has had and the vice president has had, and he talked to Trump supporters in the state. Some of these conversations have been eye opening, Lieutenant Governor.
Here are just a couple voters talking to Donie I want to play it for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: In Georgia, Republicans run the elections, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: Secretary of state, all that. They said they investigated and investigated and investigated. They've counted three or four times.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
O'SULLIVAN: They said Biden has still won. Do you accept that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. Not all Republicans are good people just because they're Republicans.
O'SULLIVAN: Will you accept Joe Biden as president?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, he'll never be my president.
O'SULLIVAN: But you accept that he is going to be inaugurated?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don't.
O'SULLIVAN: How could that change at this point?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it could be a civil war. You never know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Lieutenant Governor, what do you say to those voters, all of whom believe the stuff the president is putting out there.
DUNCAN: That was just hard to listen to, I got to be honest with you. My gut reaction, hard to listen to folks talk like that.
Look, any Republican, including the president, that wants to fan the flames and spread this misinformation about election fraud, quite honestly, it is an excuse for the loss. And it is not a solution.
It is not going to help. It hasn't helped us gain momentum to get us here today. It certainly hasn't. It has been a distraction.
Longer term, it puts us in a tough position to have to re-invent ourselves as GOP 2.0, and figure out a pathway forward that grows the tent and really amplifies what we're good at.
And as a Republican, I think we're good at the policy. I think we need to get better at empathy. And we certainly have to get better at tone as we move forward.
BURNETT: Lieutenant Governor, I appreciate your time. Lieutenant governor from Georgia, thank you.
DUNCAN: Thanks, Erin.
BURNETT: Next, President Trump having lunch with the vice president, Mike Pence, right now putting pressure on him to try to do something tomorrow to overturn this victory. It can't be done, but this is an incredible position we're seeing the vice president put into.
And a new study revealing a stunning and sobering possibility that the number of coronavirus infections in the United States could be four times higher than reported. And with that would come hospitalizations and death.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:38:05]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Breaking news. President Trump and Vice President Pence together now having lunch amid the president's intensifying pressure campaign for Pence to overturn the November election.
This, as Senator Ted Cruz saying he will object to state of Arizona's Electoral College results tomorrow. Senator Josh Hawley also pledging to challenge results in Pennsylvania.
At least 140 House Republicans along with 13 Senators are expected to oppose the certification of the Electoral College results. It's a futile last-ditch effort to overturn President-Elect Biden's victory.
I want to bring in Mark Preston, CNN senior political analyst, and Lauren Barron-Lopez, national political reporter for "Politico."
Lauren, at least 13 Republican Senators, 140 House Republicans plan to stand with the president in his failed efforts to try to overturn the election. It is stunning what they're trying to do.
What are they weighing here as they try to make this decision?
LAUREN BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the Republicans that are challenging the election of Biden, the electors, they're trying to focus on the number of states, particularly Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania.
But when you ask the same Republicans whether or not that means they should invalidate their own elections, the elections of House members or Senators in those states, they say no.
Which gets at the heart of the cognitive dissonance, Anderson, which is that you ask Georgia House newly elected member, who is a QAnon conspiracy theorist supporter, Marjorie Taylor Greene, whether it also means that she, her election should not be valid, if they invalidate Georgia's electors, and she says no.
So that gets at this chaos that's brewing within the Republican conference, both in the Senate and House.
COOPER: Mark, President Trump has been singling out Republicans that are not supporting his efforts to overturn this. I just want to play this for our viewers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mike Lee is here, too. I am a little angry with him today.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: Where is Mike Lee?
A little angry at you today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:40:05]
COOPER: He's saying he hopes the North Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, will run against Senator John Thune in 2022, and warning Tom Cotton Republicans will never forget.
That's why Republicans are afraid to stand up to Trump. They don't want a tweet or rally callout. It is pathetic.
MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It is really pathetic. And, Anderson, it has gotten very, very complicated certainly in the last couple months for the Republican Party.
When we talk about what's the future of the Republican Party, it will be split in the near term. We already have these Trump activists, supporters saying they're going to create their own party, which we all know is very hard to do.
And basically, it is fool hardy, because the way the system is set up, if you're a Democrat or Republican, that's your only clear shot at going to the White House.
What I think is interesting, too, we're watching Donald Trump now really engaging in a slow suicide, a slow political suicide. I think we're going to look back on these times and say, if President
Trump had shown some leadership during COVID, had President Trump shown some leadership about being a Republican, going down, winning the two races, and being the heir apparent to run again in four years, then I think he would be in a much better position.
But I do think the Republicans out there right now that are fearful, as you mentioned, perhaps the likes like Tom Cotton, that want to see Donald Trump implode right now because that's their path to the White House.
COOPER: And there's no amount of loyalty to President Trump or subservient to him really matters. In the end, Trump will turn against anybody on a dime.
President Trump is now increasing pressure on Vice President Pence to do something. He was tweeting today, "The vice president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors."
I mean, Vice President Pence's role here is basically a formality. It's ceremonial.
BARRON-LOPEZ: Right. Right. What Trump is asking Pence to do is certainly irregular, ahistorical. This is typically something -- what Pence has to oversee is something that is typically non noncontroversial.
And as you said, Anderson, despite the fact that over the years Pence has been next to Trump's side, almost never rebutting him, rebuking him, the president is now turning on the vice president and pressuring him publicly through tweets.
One big thing about what comes out of this so-called stunt, pretty much, the fact that it won't be successful, the Republican efforts on both the House or Senate floor as well as Georgia runoff.
One big thing running through the Republican Party now is that there are voters so devoted to Trump who do not believe that Biden is the legitimate elected president.
And so that's something that's a big question, coming out of the Georgia runoff, coming out of these events on the House and Senate floor tomorrow, which is, how does it impact democracy in terms of voters being so wedded to Trump himself.
COOPER: Yes. Laura, Mark, we appreciate it.
We got our connection back with Alan Frumin, Senate parliamentarian emeritus. He joins us once again.
So, Alan, we got disconnected before. You were talking about the pressure, the role of Vice President Pence in this. You were saying it is essentially to open the proceedings.
Explain what the vice president can and cannot do during this. ALAN FRUMIN, FORMER U.S. SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN: First of all, as a
side note, the Constitution and the relevant statute authorizes the, quote, "president of the Senate" to perform all of these duties.
There's an out for the vice president if, for some reason, he doesn't want to preside. He could duck this and allow Chuck Grassley to preside.
Leaving that aside, whoever presides, under the authority of the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act, they have two powers, two authorities. One, open the ballots, two, announce the result of the vote.
There's nothing in the Constitution, there's nothing in the statue, there's in precedence or experience or practice at all that gives the presiding officer in this joint session any discretionary authority whatsoever.
COOPER: So when the president is talking about he hopes Mike Pence steps up, comes through for him tomorrow, is there any -- I mean, what play does the vice president have to try to do something in favor of President Trump?
FRUMIN: There are two parts to the question. What can he do physically? What can he do legally?
Legally, he opens the ballots and announces the result. Beyond that, he has no authority to do anything.
Having said that, what can he do if he simply decides to announce and pronounce that he and Donald Trump had won the election? We would be in crazy town then, a place where we've never been.
[13:45:02]
Should that happen, it would seem to me the two are not without recourse.
In each, the House and the Senate, whenever the presiding officer makes a ruling, those rulings are always subject to appeal in the respective Houses.
And an appeal, the question on an appeal is challenge the decision of the chair, stand as the judgment of the Senate or the House.
So the burden would be on the chair, in this case the vice president, to have both Houses of Congress separately vote to sustain whatever it is he was pronouncing.
So that --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: -- that's a coup. That's a coup attempt, is it not? I mean, if this happened in some developing country, where the person who lost the election just announces that they didn't lose the election, that's a coup.
FRUMIN: I will not disagree with that characterization.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: So given all we know so far -- I mean, he is in an interesting spot.
Clearly, the president is trying to makeup that there's something magical he can do when really his job is -- I mean, he's like somebody presenting an award at the Academy Awards. He shows up, opens the envelope, announces what's on the envelope.
FRUMIN: That's all he is authorized to do. We've never seen somebody at the Oscars open an envelope, give one to you or me, and this would be the equivalent of that.
COOPER: It is fascinating.
Alan Frumin, a lot to watch for tomorrow. Thank you so much.
Coming up next --
FRUMIN: Thank you.
COOPER: -- coronavirus is ravaging California. People are dying within minutes of each other. Health care could be rationed. The situation described as a, quote, human disaster." We'll take you there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:51:31]
BURNETT: "Human disaster," that's how California, the center of the coronavirus outbreak is described today. In L.A. County, about one in five people tested right now, testing positive.
The virus taking a life there every 15 minutes. Every 15 minutes, someone dying of coronavirus in Los Angeles.
Where Nick Watt is standing right now,
Nick, this is bad. Officials are warning it could get worse?
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Erin, this is where we are now.
Ambulance crews here in Los Angeles County have been told if they're treating a certain cardiac-arrest victim, who after resuscitation attempts aren't showing signs of life, well, they should be pronounced dead at the scene and not even transported to the hospital. That's how much pressure hospitals here are under.
When ambulances take someone to the hospital, it can take hours in a line before they can drop that person off. And sometimes that person doesn't go into the hospital but into a tent. EMTs are also being told to limit who they give oxygen to, because
it's in such short supply. And across southern California, Erin, ICU capacity is officially at zero percent.
Now, California has and has had some of the toughest restrictions during this pandemic. But either they're just not being enforced or, you know, people are just not obeying them.
And the real fear here is that what's happening in Los Angeles and California today could be happening somewhere else tomorrow, next week, next month -- Erin?
BURNETT: Nick, thank you very much.
I want to go to Dr. Paul Offit to respond to what Nick just reported.
Dr. Offit, a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee and an attending physician at the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia.
Dr. Offit, you hear what Nick watt is saying and reporting. Do you think things could get worse? And what we're seeing in California, is it true that really we could start to see that happen somewhere else?
DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER & ATTENDING PHYSICIAN, DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: Yes. Especially with this sort of emergence of this U.K. variant virus, the B117 strain which is definitely more contagious.
That in combination with the fact that clearly we're not doing everything we can regarding this, social distancing, it'll still be cold weather, still not humid, relatively dry climate, which allows for further spread of the virus.
The next few months we could see another 200,000 people die. It's heartbreaking.
BURNETT: It is heartbreaking.
"The Atlantic" did a fascinating report a few days ago showing how terrible the new strains could be.
It basically said, if you have an increase of 50 percent in the fatality rate, versus a 50 percent increase in the transmissibility. Right? We're seeing a much more transmissible virus, but not more deadly.
They were showing, just the math, you would see five times more people would die with a more transmissible strain than the current strain killing more people.
That's what you're talking about, I guess.
OFFIT: Right. It's not technically, it's not more deadly. But you're much more likely to get it then you are much more likely to be -- now you have the infection. It's not more virulent. It has not drifted away from the vaccine. Good
news. But it is much more contagious and we're suffering that.
BURNETT: We have seen concerns about the South African strain, more transmittable, just like the U.K. strain.
But there have been concerns raised by health officials in South Africa that could be vaccine resistant, combined with being incredibly transmissible.
[13:55:06]
Do you share those concerns or do you know more about the status of that evaluation?
OFFIT: I haven't seen the most recent studies of that. Clearly there's studies showing the U.K. variant has not escaped the vaccine.
It's easy to do the studies. You can do those studies in about a week once you have the strain in hand. We should see those studies shortly.
I'm optimistic that this particular virus, although it's an RNA virus, like influenza, which can mutate so much one year to the next, affecting the vaccine.
Measles is also an mRNA virus. It also mutates. It also has variants but it has never drifted away. The vaccine been around since the early 1960s.
I like to think this virus may be more like that, but this has been unusual virus in many and probably shouldn't make predictions.
BURNETT: Yes. I think the measles example is really important. A lot of people haven't heard it.
Last quick question. You said basically dosing a lot more people and hoping more doses become available as opposed to saving the second dose for each person would be a bad idea.
The FDA agrees with you. But the current head of "Operation Warp Speed," Dr. Slaoui, he thinks maybe that's what we should do, vaccinate as many people as possible and hope, three weeks later, we have enough to give more.
Are you concerned about that?
OFFIT: Yes. Clearly, when you get a second dose, you have a tremendous boost in immune response. And there's evidence of maybe you're more likely to memory responses, which is longer-lived immunity.
We know the two doses work. We know it gives 95 percent protection. When you give one dose, there is protection that first few weeks. You don't know if it's any longer than that.
Plus, if you're not sure when you're supposed to get the second dose, that really disrupts the program and may make it so that many people who should be getting a second dose don't get it. They think they're protected and they're not. I think it would be disruptive.
BURNETT: Yes. Absolutely. Stick with a set of things. And obviously, there could be single-dose vaccines coming online, Johnson & Johnson. We shall see.
Dr. Offit, thank you very much.
OFFIT: Thank you.
BURNETT: We have much more of our special coverage of "Election Day in America."
We'll be back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
